DENVER – Open radio access networks (RANs) remain a work in progress that is being held up by several issues that could limit broad adoption until the 6G upgrade cycle, contended at least one panel member during an open RAN session at this week’s ConnectX event in Denver.

Broadly, panel members during the “Open RAN Reality Check” session cited progress toward a more cohesive open RAN deployment, highlighted repeatedly by Dish Network’s recent launch of commercial service in Las Vegas. However, so much work is needed to support more extensive network deployments from established operators – so-called “brownfield” deployments – that those efforts might not hit reality until the next decade.

Mark Rubin, director of RF solutions at Jacobs Telecommunications, said during the panel that most operators are at least “putting their toes in the water, they’re not jumping in yet.”

“The question is why, and I think there’s a whole host of reasons why, but one of the big ones is when do we make the leap?” Rubin said. “And it seems to me it would have to be at a transition to the next G would make the most sense. So if you’ve missed the 5G boat, it would make the most sense to then say, ok, what about 6G because they have so much invested in the traditional RAN, it’s hard to make a business case to convert.”

Rubin’s comments echoed those made by industry observers.

“If you look at 5G rolling out in the most economically developed and populous countries in the world, as it already is, it’s unlikely that you’re going to have operators go back and rip and replace the 5G equipment that they’ve already invested in just to deploy open RAN,” Dan Hays, principal at PwC’s Strategy& consultancy group, told SDxCentral in an interview late last year. Hays added that this lends itself toward a model where established operators wait until the next upgrade cycle.

“At this point even though it seems far away, open RAN may wind up being more of a 6G type of architecture versus one that’s widely adopted for 5G,” he added.

John Strand, CEO at the Denmark-based consultancy Strand Consult, agreed with Hays, explaining that the equipment market’s largest vendors – Ericsson and Nokia – despite their heavy involvement in open RAN development, don’t expect the technology to gain significant traction until the latter end of this decade.

“This is too little, too late for 5G,” Stand said. “Some of these things will be part of 6G,” but the standardization hasn’t yet effectively leveled up to the industry’s primary standards body 3GPP.

“The question is: How big of a percent of the installed base will be open RAN?” Strand said. “I think in 2025, less than 1%. And in 2030, less than 3%.”